Guestbook Project Events

Performances, Seminars, and Conferences

Poetries of the Stranger (2009)

Co-hosted by BC’s Faculty of the Arts and presented in collaboration with the Academy of American Poets and Boston Review, the Poetries of the Stranger festival celebrates the poetries and poets who have exemplified a strange poetics of voice, image and place. These poetic voices have been described as edgy, experimental, even at times contentious and controversial. Though each has been multiply honored with with significant awards, their work has often been difficult to categorize, making them uniquely qualified to participate in an examination of welcome — or not — to the stranger.

"Hosting the Stranger" Seminar (2009)

An Interdisciplinary Seminar co-organised by Richard Kearney of Boston College and Glorianna Davenport of MIT on the theme of Hospitality to the Stranger. It was held at Boston College in the Spring Semester of 2009 and sponsored by the Boston College Faculty of Arts.

Featured presentations include:

Week 1: Richard Kearney on the genealogy of the definition of hospitality and the stranger.Week 2: Glorianna Davenport on her media practice and the concept of hospitality in interactive environments.Week 3: Kalpana Seshadri, James Bernauer, and Susan Michalczyk discuss concepts of the other.Week 4: Ellen Winter on developmental psychology and making sense of the other.Week 5: Anne Davenport and Richard Kearney, “The Sixth Sense: Portal to the Stranger.”Week 6: Chris Yates, Elizabeth Purcell, and James Taylor discuss Weldenfels, Derrida, and the stranger as enemy or friend.Week 7: Pamela Berger on themes of hospitality in Killian’s Chronicle and the Book of Judges, and Matilda Judges on hospitality/hostility in Jewish and Christian holiday tradition.Week 8: Fanny Howe and Amy Hollywood, “Sacred Eros, Hosting Uninvited Guests.”Week 9: Mike Civille, Regine Jean-Charles, and Tina Klein, “Hospitality and Hostility: Racial Stereotypes of Asians and Africans.Week 10: Dorothy Cross on her art practice and “Strangers of the Deep.”Week 11: John Michalczyk and Fr. Raymond Helmick, “Across Borders: Alien Nations.”Week 12: Paul Mariani and Christopher Ricks on the poetics of the stranger.Week 13: Ali Banuazizi, Stephen Pfohl, and Noam Chomsky on Aliens, Strangers, and Monsters.

"Interreligious Hospitality" Conference (2009)

An international conference featuring representatives from five major wisdom traditions – Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist. Held in Boston College in February 2009 and sponsored by the Arts Faculty and Jesuit Institute at Boston College.